Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Restrictions on sex offenders lack sense, common and otherwise

I wish I could tell Walt Teichen not to worry, that common sense will surely prevail in the sad, scary story of his son.

But I would be lying. His son is a sex offender, and when it comes to sex offenders, hysteria and superstition trump common sense every time.

In December 2008, Kevin Teichen (pictured), then 27, had sex with two 16-year-old girls in a Downers Grove motel room. The girls were willing participants, and Teichen, who suffers from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, has the judgment and social skills of a 10-year-old.

But the girls were under the legal age of consent, and authorities contended Kevin knew right from wrong when he had sex with them. So he ended up pleading guilty but mentally ill to aggravated criminal sexual abuse and received a five-year prison sentence.

Flash ahead to today: Kevin is scheduled to be paroled from Taylorville Correctional Center on July 23. His parents, Walt, 60, and Kathy, 58, want him to move back into their Elmhurst home where they can supervise his transition to freedom.

Unfortunately, there is a part-time preschool program operating in a church around the corner from the Teichen residence. It's roughly 400 feet from lot line to lot line, and the rigid, one-size-fits-all legal restrictions in Illinois prohibit sex offenders from living within 500 feet of schools, parks, day-care centers and other places where children gather.

Nothing in the record suggests Kevin is a pedophile with a deviant interest in the 2- to 5-year-old clientele of a preschool or that he has any predatory tendencies.

But even if he were a pedophile, the vast weight of research on residential restrictions — now in roughly 30 states and expanding, in places, to quarter-mile buffer zones — suggests this geographic limitation would do nothing to protect children.

"There was no significant relationship between reoffending and proximity to schools or day cares," concluded an academic study of such restrictions published last year in Criminal Justice and Behavior, the journal of The American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology. "The belief that keeping sex offenders far from schools and other child-friendly locations will protect children from sexual abuse appears to be a well-intentioned but flawed premise."

That premise will keep Kevin locked up past his parole date. The Illinois Department of Corrections refuses to allow sex offenders without legal places to live to enter supervised release (parole) programs, and a DOC spokeswoman said roughly 1,000 such inmates a year are "violated at the door," as the expression goes, and reincarcerated until their full sentences are up.

Some of you, I know, are saying, "So what? Sex offenders are the lowest of the low and the longer they're locked up, the better."

The flaw in this thinking is that it ultimately short-circuits the safeguards — such as mandatory therapy, electronic monitoring and tight supervision — that help offenders successfully re-enter society. When Kevin's sentence is up in July 2012, for instance, he'll walk free even if he has nowhere to live.

"One of the unintended consequence of these draconian residency-restrictions is that they increase homelessness and transience among ex-offenders," said Lynn University psychology professor Jill S. Levenson, one of the authors of the article in Criminal Justice and Behavior. "And those," she said, "are known risk factors for the resumption of criminal behavior."

Last year, my colleagues Megan Twohey and Joe Mahr chronicled in this newspaper a series of horror stories of sex criminals who served their parole periods behind bars, then reoffended after vanishing unsupervised into the community. Nearly 1 in 3 was not up to date with the state's sex-offender registry.

Walt and Kathy Teichen are unemployed and say they can't move or afford a separate dwelling for Kevin, their only child.

The compassionate and sensible solution would be for state officials to consider the circumstances here — including substantial expert opinion that it would be best for Kevin and for society for him to live at home — and issue a waiver.

But there is no provision in the law for such consideration or the issuance of such a waiver, according to the Department of Corrections. And given the invertebrate skittishness with which our lawmakers approach the issue of sex crimes, there's little chance we'll ever add such a provision or relax the restrictions and introduce common sense when it comes to nonviolent offenders.

All I can tell Walt Teichen is, if I were him, I'd worry, too. And good luck.

RESOURCES:

Excerpts from RESIDENTIAL PROXIMITY TO SCHOOLS AND DAYCARESAn Empirical Analysis of Sex Offense Recidivism published in the May, 2010 issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior, the journal of The American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology and written by PAUL A. ZANDBERGEN, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; JILL S. LEVENSON, Lynn University, Boca Raton, Florida; TIMOTHY C. HART University of Nevada, Las Vegas:

Residential restrictions for sex offenders have become increasingly popular, despite the lack of empirical data suggesting that offenders’ proximity to schools or daycares contributes to recidivism. .. No significant differences were found between the distances that recidivists and nonrecidivists lived from schools and daycares. There was no significant relationship between reoffending and proximity to schools or daycares. ...These data do not support the widespread enactment of residential restrictions for sexual offenders....Given the paucity of data suggesting that sex offender residence restrictions prevent recidivism and the growing body of evidence indicating that housing policies increase tran- sience, homelessness, and unemployment, these laws may be contraindicated. The belief that keeping sex offenders far from schools and other child-friendly locations will protect children from sexual abuse appears to be a well-intentioned but flawed premise. The data from this study do not support the widespread enactment of residential restrictions for sexual offenders. The time that police and probation officers spend addressing sex offender housing issues is likely to divert law enforcement resources away from behaviors that truly threaten our communities.

Using the known patterns of sex offenders can be helpful in fashioning relevant restrictions that may be more successful in preventing future crime. Individual case management decisions rather than broad legislative initiatives would target pertinent risk factors for each offender and allow for a more judicious and efficient distribution of resources. Evidence thus far points to the idea that it is not where sex offenders live but rather where they go and what they do that contributes to facilitating a new sex offense...The development of effective legislation requires separation of emotion, which often derives from media depictions of exceptionally predatory offenders, from rationality, which uses empirical knowledge to examine how best to concentrate resources so as to reduce the overall pool of sexual violence. Policies that rest on the “stranger danger” myth of offenders who lurk around schools or playgrounds may not only misdirect resources to the prevention of crimes in places where they seldom occur, but more importantly fail to truly protect children from sexual violence.

Excerpt from "The Impact of Sex Offender Residence Restrictions: 1,000 Feet From Danger or One Step From Absurd?" in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, (2005) by Jill S. Levenson and Leo P. Cotter:

Social policy should be solidly grounded in empirical evidence and informed by theoretical literature. It is clear that public concern about sexual crimes sometimes leads to legislation that is not driven by data or science but rather by outrage and fear. Scientists and practitioners have a responsibility to assist lawmakers to respond to the problem of sexual violence by advocating for the development of evidence-based policies that protect women and children and rehabilitate perpetrators as well.

(1) drafted and advocated to pass legislation that would provide the Prison Review Board with discretion and flexibility to apply specific parole conditions to felony sex offenders based on the risk posed by the specific sex offender. That was the goal of the bill in 2004 (HB 6786, Public Act 93-0865). Here are points about that bill that come from the information that we provided to legislators at the time it was being considered:

House Bill 6786 will create specific conditions of parole that would apply to persons who are currently required to register on the sex offender registry for committing felony sex offenses.

This bill would give parole agents much needed tools for supervising sex offenders in the community

Through this bill the Prisoner Review Board is vested with discretion on whether and for what length of time these conditions will be imposed on sex offenders. Because the definition of “sex offender” applies to a wide range of offenders and risk assessments, it is imperative to be able to strengthen or lessen conditions on a case by case basis. It is critical that the conditions be flexible enough in their application to be relevant for a lengthy supervision term.

Treating sex offenders with a "one size fits all" approach translates into more victims. Sex offenders simply cannot be supervised on parole like car thieves. The high recidivism rate and the devastating, often lifelong damage caused to victims of sex offenders demands specialized supervision. The bill gives the Prisoner Review Board the discretion to apply certain conditions to felony sex offenders.

That bill did not impose new residency restrictions or increase the restrictions that existed at that time. It did require that offenders have an approved place to live – but did not change the law regarding residency restrictions. In fact, as you can tell from the points above, the goal was to provide flexibility to the PRB and give them a list of sex offender specific conditions that they could exercise their discretion to impose based on the risk posed by the specific, individual offender – inherent in the flexibility was the fact that the PRB could decline to impose certain restrictions if they determine that an offender does not pose risks.

(2) Worked with state, federal and local law enforcement to search for sex offenders who are supposed to be registered and make sure that they are in compliance with all of the laws. This work has allowed us to try to focus on offenders who pose a risk and ensure that they are complying.

After his prison sentence came to an end in April 2007, child sex predator Ronald Dubbins was supposed to undergo one year of tightly controlled supervision as he transitioned back home -- with electronic monitoring, mandatory therapy and frequent meetings with a parole officer.

But because he could not find a place to live that met Illinois' ever-expanding sex offender housing restrictions, Dubbins served parole behind bars and then was released into Cook County without monitoring.

Faced with complete freedom, he quickly returned to his predatory ways, attempting to lure young children into his Berwyn apartment for sex, court records show.

Dubbins' case illustrates a growing danger in Illinois. A Tribune review has found that the state's sex offender housing laws, enacted over the past decade with the goal of protecting the public, may be having the opposite effect.

Thousands of sex offenders have remained in prison for parole and then been returned to the streets without oversight or treatment. These offenders are less likely to register their addresses than those serving tightly monitored paroles in the community. They also are more likely to reoffend, sometimes repeating the same sex crimes, the review found.

For example, within a year of his release, Dubbins was convicted of trying to abduct children between 4 and 12 years old and soliciting sex acts from them. And Khieng Heng, released into Des Plaines, was convicted of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a young relative, while Jermaine Johnson was charged with killing a man in Chicago with a broken bottle after what investigators said could have been a sexual solicitation gone wrong.

Of the 1,292 sex offenders discharged in fiscal 2008 after serving parole behind bars, 28 percent were listed as missing, not having registered their address or not being up-to-date with their registrations, compared with 23 percent of the 1,868 sex offenders paroled into the community.

Another 21 percent of the discharged offenders returned to prison, a slightly higher rate than those who were paroled. But in most cases, offenders monitored in the community were sent back to prison for technical parole violations, in many cases housing-related problems, while the discharged offenders were convicted of new crimes.

Sex offender housing restrictions have long been criticized by civil liberties advocates, who argue that it's unjust to banish any segment of society, and by criminal justice experts, who say it's more productive and cost-effective for most offenders to undergo parole supervision and treatment in the community.

Now some victims' advocates and members of law enforcement are echoing the calls for reform.

"There's a growing awareness that these housing restrictions make politicians feel good, but don't protect victims or prevent crime," said Kaethe Morris Hoffer, a legal director at the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation.

The restrictions were prompted by several high-profile attacks on children in the 1990s, among them the abduction, rape and murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka of New Jersey by a convicted sex offender who was the family's neighbor.

The first wave of laws required that convicted offenders register their addresses or face arrest. They were followed by actual prohibitions on where offenders could reside.

In 2000, Illinois passed a law that prohibited child sex offenders from residing within 500 feet of schools, parks and day care centers. Some municipalities went further, setting the distance at 1,000 feet or more.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office pushed for a 2004 law that, among other things, allowed parole officers to prevent all sex offenders, not just those who targeted children, from living in such areas.

One year later, lawmakers from Chicago championed legislation that made it illegal for more than one sex offender to live in the same apartment complex unless it was a transitional housing facility that met strict state licensing requirements, such as 24-hour-a-day security. They were upset that offenders from across the state were landing in high concentrations on the city's South and West sides after prison.

"It's a dangerous world out there," said state Rep. Kevin Joyce, D-Chicago. "We want to help protect our kids."

Since then, the number of transitional housing beds for sex offenders in Illinois has dropped from more than 200 to 26. Today, there is only one halfway house licensed by the state. The facility, in East St. Louis, has a waiting list of more than 1,300 inmates.

The Illinois Department of Corrections has stopped releasing offenders for parole who do not have an acceptable place to live. There are as many as 1,800 of these refusals to release each year, according to the department. In many cases, inmates have been walked to the prison door on the day of their scheduled release, only to be turned around and reprocessed all over again.

"We won't release them if they don't have a place to live," said Alyssa Williams-Schafer, the department's coordinator of sex offender services.

This turnaround policy has come under fire from civil rights advocates, including a team of Chicago attorneys who filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Corrections alleging that the offenders' constitutional rights to due process and equal protection are violated when they are forced to remain behind bars because they can't afford a place to live.

Other critics question the one-size-fits-all application of housing restrictions, seeing a significant difference in the small percentage of sex offenders who target strangers, for example, and the so-called "Romeo and Juliet" cases, in which older boyfriends are convicted of criminal sexual abuse for having consensual sex with their younger girlfriends.

"The boyfriend-girlfriend thing with an age difference is different from a person who kidnapped a 7-year-old girl or boy," said Laimutis Nargelenas, a lobbyist for the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police. "Maybe the housing laws should only apply to the most serious sex offenders."

Less visible are the safety concerns that come with releasing sex offenders without supervision.

When sex offenders serve parole in the community, they must wear electronic monitoring devices, participate in weekly counseling and undergo other strict monitoring.

Those who serve parole behind bars are not required to undergo counseling (most don't, Williams-Schafer said), and their length of parole can be cut in half due to "good time" credit applicable to inmates -- as was the case with Dubbins.

Once the parole comes to an end, the prison has no legal means to keep or monitor them once they are out.

"It's kind of scary as a woman out on the street," said Tracie Newton, supervisor of the state's sex offender registry.

Even those convicted of sex offenses see the heightened risks in such scenarios. A 32-year-old sex offender serving parole in Chicago said many of the participants in his weekly sex offender treatment sessions make him nervous. He was not surprised that those released without any monitoring after serving parole behind bars are less likely to register their address and more likely to commit other crimes.

"It's more dangerous to society if the person maxes out parole in prison and then just leaves straight up," the sex offender said. "Some people require a lot of attention."

Madigan's office in 2007 began tracking down sex offenders who disappeared after serving parole behind bars.

Investigators have been able to locate no more than 60 percent of offenders, including many who landed back in prison. About 40 percent remain missing.

"They have disappeared into a black hole," said Cara Smith, Madigan's deputy chief of staff.

Last month, The Collaborative on Re-Entry, a coalition of community safety officials from across the state, pledged to find ways to address the unintended consequences of sex offender housing restrictions.

Absent reform, offenders such as Dubbins will continue to walk the streets without oversight.

-----

Declaration of Anthony P. Wartnik, Judge (Retired) in Support of Kevin Teichen’s Petition for Clemency

Comes, now, Anthony P. Wartnik, and declares under the penalty of perjury that the following facts are true:

I served as a trial judge in the State of Washington for over 34 years, first as a limited jurisdiction trial judge (Bellevue District Court) from January, 1971 until March, 1980, and then as a general jurisdiction trial judge (King County Superior Court) from April, 1980 until my retirement in January, 2005.

During my tenure as a Superior Court Judge, I chaired the King County Superior Court Family Law Department, Juvenile and Family Law Committees, and served as the Presiding Judge of the King County Juvenile Court division of the Superior Court. During one of my tours of duty at Juvenile Court, I chaired an ad hoc committee of prosecutors, defense lawyers and FASD experts that developed the protocols for the determination of competency of youngsters suffering from organic brain damage who were involved in our juvenile justice system. As a result of the latter activity, I was appointed by Governor Mike Lowry to serve on his Advisory Panel on FAS/FAE in 1995 and was elected Chair by the panel’s membership. During my Superior Court career, I presided over thousands of criminal cases in both our adult and juvenile court divisions.

In 2003 and 2004, I was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Washington Supreme Court to chair its Education Committee, having previously served as the Dean and Dean Emeritus of the State’s Judicial College for new judges. This committee is responsible for establishing the educational curriculum and courses for our annual statewide judicial conferences. During this period as chair, I organized and participated in presentations at two of our state’s annual judicial conferences on various aspects of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). Since my retirement I have served as a consultant to the Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit at the University of Washington School of Medicine and am presently the Legal Director for FASD Experts, the first FASD Forensic Diagnostic Team in the United States. FASD Experts is composed of myself, psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Adler, psychologist, Dr. Natalie Novick Brown, and neuropsychologist, Dr. Paul Connor. Since 2005, I have attended training sessions and annual scientific updates on FASD sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) and have presented at conferences and symposiums for judges, judicial staff, lawyers, social workers, probation and parole officers, medical service providers, and the general public on numerous issues involving FASD and the courts locally, nationally and internationally. I have presented at the request of both prosecutors and public defenders, including, just this year, the Annual Federal Public Defenders Conference in Seattle, Washington, the Arizona State Public Defenders Association in Tempe, Arizona, and the DuPage County Symposium on FASD at Wheaton, Illinois at the request of DuPage County State’s Attorney, the Hon. Joseph E. Birkett.. I have written on a number of subjects involving FASD and the courts which have either been or are in the process of being published. I am attaching my article on sentencing, entitled, “Stopping the Revolving Door of the Justice Systems,” which I believe is particularly relevant to how and under what circumstances we can expect Kevin Teichen to be successful in society upon his release from prison. It was during preparation for the DuPage symposium that I became aware of the Kevin Teichen case and it was at the symposium where I met Kevin’s parents.

At the request of Mr. Walt Teichen, I have reviewed the psychological and sexual deviancy evaluations performed on his son, Kevin, dated, November 5, 2009 and February 7, 2010, respectively. First, it seems clear that Kevin is not a sexual predator and presents a low risk for recidivism, if provided with appropriate structure, supervision and support in the community. He operates at an age of 8 – 10 years of age socially, an age range that is classified in most states as incompetent to understand what constitutes a crime, incapable of committing a crime and, thus, incompetent to stand trial. This range of functioning, both intellectually and socially, is a common feature of the brain damage (FASD) caused by consumption of alcohol by women during pregnancy.. He operates at an age range at which it is also very common to have children interacting with other children in a way that indicates sexual exploration and experimentation without an understanding of the seriousness or consequences of such activity.

Experience indicates, as I discuss in the attached article, that people with FASD have great difficulty functioning in society due to the combination of deficits in intellectual and adaptive functioning, I.Q. and adaptive behaviors.. This population requires a very structured and routine life style, with close supervision and or monitoring via support systems that must be built in around the individual by family, friends and volunteers if they are to live successfully and survive in society. This population does not deal well in or with abstract concepts and communications need to be executed in very simple and concrete terms, with lots of repetition. If this population is to succeed, we need to understand that this population will fail if measured by our mainstream expectations of how they should function and perform in society. They are not able to handle the stresses that society places upon them when they are released from prison to live and function on their own, living by themselves without the necessary support system being available to them 24/7.

Kevin Teichen’s functioning in the community and risk to the community will be placed at great risk if he is not permitted to live with his parents as the alternative is to cast him out into the community without the support system that only they can establish and provide for him. They understand FASD and what is necessary to eliminate the opportunity for Kevin to transgress, something that the average landlord, employer, co-worker, neighbor and others do not understand and are ill-equipped to provide. Certainly, probation and parole officers cannot be expected to understand all of the issues surrounding persons with FASD without adequate training. They are not able to provide the level of constant supervision and counseling that Kevin will be in need of if he is to survive in the community without presenting an unreasonable risk it without the assistance of family, friends, and volunteers,

If Kevin’s case had come before me and I was satisfied that the family was willing to make the necessary sacrifices to support Kevin and to keep him crime free, including being able to establish supports within their entire circle of family, friends and others who understand FASD and how to monitor and guide Kevin, I would not have imposed a restriction on residence that precluded the use of the very support people and systems that are necessary for his successful re-integration into and ongoing behavior in the community. Denying release from prison will only delay the inevitable, will expose Kevin to victimization which has already occurred in prison, and will further his criminal education as a result of the prison environment.

It is unfortunate that Joe Birkett did not feel that it was appropriate to delay Kevin’s sentencing until after the symposium had occurred as I believe that he now has a far better understanding of the delicate line between success and failure of persons with FASD who are caught up in the criminal justice system and the need for initiating special approached in sentencing for this population. I know that he has a special interest in FASD, and I believe that he was guided by sound judgment and principles, given what he knew about FASD before my keynote address and the presentations of the other experts at the symposium, when he made the decision to proceed to sentencing and to urge the court to require sexual offender registration and the residential restrictions that go with it.---

Tribune article at time of Kevin Teichen's sentencing:

Jail for man with fetal alcohol syndromeMay 11, 2010 by Art Barnum

A 29-year-old Elmhurst man with fetal alcohol syndrome pleaded guilty but mentally ill today to having sex with a 16-year-old girl and was sentenced to five years in prison. Kevin Teichen had symptoms of the disease 20 years ago, but wasn't diagnosed until he was an adult.

Teichen has been in DuPage County Jail since January 2009 after being charged with four counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Because of the time he has already served and with day-for-day credit for good behavior, Teichen is expected to be released from prison in less than a year.

Teichen picked up two 16-year-old girls he was acquainted with at Willowbrook High School on Dec. 16, 2008, and drove them to a Downers Grove motel, where they engaged in sexual acts, Assistant State's Attorney Enza LaMonica said.

As part of a plea deal, Teichen was convicted of only one count involving only one of the girls. Seventeen is the legal age of consent in Illinois.

The case has been delayed over the last year as Teichen has undergone several mental health examinations, which have confirmed the syndrome diagnoses.

Teichen was adopted as a baby by Walt and Kathy Teichen, who had dealt with his behavioral problems since early childhood.

Judge Kathryn Creswell said Monday that she reviewed many mental health records and acknowledged that he suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome, but "the condition did not impair his judgment to the degree that he didn't understand what he was doing was illegal. Prison is not inappropriate."

Walt Teichen said after the sentencing that "the judge still doesn't understand what fetal alcohol syndrome is all about."

"There are no other options available, and that is unfortunate. Society must be protected, and even his family recognized that his behavior can't go unpunished."

Teichen appeared in good spirits and answered Creswell's questions appropriately, as he had during previous appearances. He waved to people he recognized in the courtroom.

Jeffrey Kendall, defense attorney, has asked that Teichen be sent to Dixon Correctional Center, a medium-security facility known for mental health counseling.

Teichen could have received anywhere from three to 14 years in prison.

---

Zorn column, February 15, 2005

When letter of law doesn't measure up

At the six-corner intersection of hysteria, ignorance and bureaucratic rigidity, we find the sorry figure of Alan Meister of Oak Park.

Three weeks ago, Meister, 29, was at a repair shop having his car alarm serviced when Cook County sheriff's deputies showed up, handcuffed him and took him to jail.

Why? Because county officials determined that the property line at the house where Meister lives with his wife, their three small children and his parents is 460 feet from the property line of a Berwyn day-care center.

This matters because a 1998 law demands that child-sex offenders live at least 500 feet from schools or day-care centers, and Meister is a registered child-sex offender.

His crime? When he was 18, he began dating a 13-year-old girl and had sex with her. Even though no force was involved, their respective ages alone made his offense a Class 2 felony. He was arrested shortly after his 19th birthday, pleaded guilty and accepted a sentence of 30 months' probation.

Fast forward to today. Meister, who posted bail and faces his next court date Friday, is now married and the father of three children, ages 6, 4 and 1. Though he has had no similar run-ins with the law since his teen years, the label sex offender and ex-felon has hung heavy on his neck, he said, costing him numerous job opportunities and blocking him from getting a license to be a locksmith, his area of expertise, from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (which would not comment).

Resultant financial strains forced the family to move in with Meister's parents. The home is so close to the imaginary line that measurements taken by Oak Park officials said it was outside the 500-foot zone.

But close doesn't count in these modern-day witch hunts. And neither does common sense or scientific research.

Nothing in Meister's past suggests that he ever posed a threat to the preschool clients of the day-care center more than 150 yards from his front door.

"When you look at what we informally call `statutory rape,' the offenders tend to have quite different characteristics from the so-called `child molesters,'" said Canadian government psychologist R. Karl Hanson, one of North America's leading researchers on the re-offense rate among sex offenders.

Pedophiles have "deviant sexual interest in children without secondary sexual characteristics (such as breasts and pubic hair)" said Hanson. And that, he said, "is a major predictor of recidivism."

Hanson's work has led him to develop multifaceted risk-assessment measurements--similar to measurements developed by other researchers--that take into account many variables about an offender's life and his crime in an effort to help authorities make wise decisions in this sensitive area of public policy.

Roughly 25 states now use such risk-assessment measurements in their approaches to former sex offenders, said Scott Matson, research associate for the Justice Department's Center for Sex Offender Management. "The risk of re-offense is actually fairly low," he said. "But legislation on this issue is usually based on public outcry, not research."

Illinois' one-size-fits-all residency law is an example. During the recent sweep for violators, Meister was caught up in the same dragnet that nabbed a man who had spent 9 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 6-year-old boy.

In more than a dozen instances, Illinois' sex-crime laws call for harsher sanctions when a victim is 12 or under. But no such distinction is made in the residency laws--which are also forcing former congressman Mel Reynolds to move away from an elementary school even though his victim, a willing former campaign worker, was 16.

Meanwhile, knee-jerk legislation now making its way through the vaporous halls of the General Assembly would prevent more than one registered sex offender from living at the same address and effectively kill successful halfway-house treatment programs.

Maybe our lawmakers can explain to Meister's kids the good reasons why their dad can't coach T-ball or get a good job, why he might have to go to prison and why the family's going to have to move from Grandma and Grandpa's to, well, they don't have any idea where.

I can't think of one.

Zorn column, February 24, 2005

Let's separate the misguided from monsters

A concerned mother from Lake Zurich recently contacted me with a cautionary tale about teenagers, child pornography and the Internet.

In late 2002, she said, her son, then 15, went online with his new laptop computer and began searching for and downloading pictures of naked girls his own age.

Understandable, perhaps, but not good. Just how not good he learned after the laptop began malfunctioning and he sent it off for repairs.

Computer technicians found the images--law enforcement allows and in some places even encourages them to look for forbidden material and report it to authorities; the courts have admitted their findings into evidence--and police came to the family home to arrest him for soliciting and possessing child pornography.

The boy pleaded guilty and now must register as a child sex offender until he's 21.

There were some complicating wrinkles to this tale, the general outlines of which were confirmed by the family's attorney but could not be otherwise verified because the boy was charged as a juvenile. The main wrinkle is that in the course of downloading batches of pictures of teenage girls, the boy also mistakenly downloaded some "very, very bad" images of younger children, according to his mother.

The point here is not to excuse this kid, but to warn other kids and their parents: Trolling the Web for erotica can land you in real and long-lasting trouble.

The Illinois attorney general's office confirmed that tough state laws on child pornography do not make any exceptions when the offender is the same age as or even younger than the minors depicted, and they do not distinguish between forbidden images of 17-year-olds and forbidden images of 5-year-olds.

In other words, a teen may see himself as just a curious and hormone-addled adolescent, but the law sees him as a dangerous pervert.

The above story was one of many I received in response to last week's column about a married 29-year-old Oak Park man whose wife and three kids are suffering because when he was 18 he had a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old girl, and the law still considers him a child sex offender.

I heard a somewhat similar tale from Kristin Perk of Crestwood, who said she was just shy of her 15th birthday in 1998 when she began a sexual relationship with her adult male guitar teacher.

"I pretty much came on to him," she said. "Then it turned into a real romance."

A real illegal romance, of course. Her parents found out and called police, who arrested the teacher, then 35. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sex-abuse charges and began a 10-year period in which he has had to register as a child sex offender and stay away from places where children congregate.

The teen's parents sent her to school in California, but she and the teacher kept in touch.

"Older people and younger people do fall in love," said the man, recalling that Elvis Presley's infatuation with his wife Priscilla began when she was 14 and that Jerry Lee Lewis' third wife was only 13.

The girl returned here when she turned 18, and, in March of 2003, she and the man, Mark Perk, were married by the same Cook County circuit judge who had handled his criminal case.

The Perks now have a toddler. They lived in the city until last fall, when police found him living within 500 feet of an elementary school and ordered him to move.

Perk found extra legal trouble--and ended up in an unflattering WLS-Ch. 7 investigative story--when he protested his ongoing status as a child sex offender by wearing a disguise for a photograph that police posted to an Internet database.

He said he has lost five jobs and been repeatedly threatened by vigilantes who learn he's a child sex offender and lump him in with the molesters who haunt playgrounds.

To say that he doesn't belong there is not to say that he was right to have had sex with a girl who was so young, no matter who came on to whom.

It's to say that these stories show that we need to work harder to sort drooling pedophiles from the horndogs who break the law. There's already enough bad judgment out there without us adding to it.

Comments

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---Empirical evidence has little to do with crafting policy about criminal law. Legislators vote for any new restriction out of fear of being labeled soft on sex offenders by their next opponent if they don't vote for it. Regardless of the lack of evidence the restriction-of-the-month will be efficacious.

Yes, we should separate the misguided from the monsters. No problem there. But I wouldn't say that generally we are too hard on sex offenders; it's that people like Dubbins are released for dumb reasons. Why can't we pick an age, let's say 12, and decide that if you are an adult convicted of molesting someone that age or younger, you are under some sort of constant supervision, whether it's jail or the next best thing, for life? Violent sex offenders of any age should be subject to the same type of punishment.

As a society, we are dumb about criminal justice. We fight a war on drugs which harms our own citizens but we are soft on illegal aliens. You can get fined for not wearing a seat belt or spanking your child while inmates get released early because prisons are overcrowded. Our priorities are screwed up.

Oh my lord, I actually agree with Zorn for once. Zorn makes an excellent - and, in today's time of heated rhetoric, a courageous - point in pointing out the differences among sex offenders and the need for lawmakers to be a little more careful when dealing with these emotional issues.

Our society and political structure do not allow for common sense to be applied to public policy. The knee-jerk reactions to problems are rarely thought out. The exclusion-zone policy with no wiggle room is one example, as are gun policy, drug policy, etc.

Pretty much any law named after some recent victim of a high profile incident is immediately suspect in my book. Though these knee-jerk laws are often well intentioned, they are almost certainly based more on emotion and political motives than common sense and good public policy.

EZ: Some of you, I know, are saying, "So what? Sex offenders are the lowest of the low and the longer they're locked up, the better."

In all fairness, given the number of sex offenders who've come from the political class (Foley, Craig, Vitter, Spitzer, Weiner...), it's easy to see how we could reach that conclusion.

Perhaps that's why the politicians have passes such Draconian sex-offense laws: since real sex crimes (rape, pedophilia, etc.) are at least as much about power as they are about sex, and politics is all about power, maybe the politicians are passing these extreme laws to protect us from themselves.

Sadly, though your story makes a great deal of sense, it will not change anything.

Misguided and/or immature teens who get arrested for sexual misconduct get the same treatment as older pedophiles. The stigma will haunt them forever. Even murderers aren't treated so harshly.

The irony is that not that long ago, girls were married off as young as 13 and betrothed even younger, and no one had a problem with that. Even Mary MoG was reputed to be 14 when she married Joseph, who was said to be 33.

What about a guy who you've been told are on the convicted SO list (and by description alone does match the person in question) for an incident with a 16 year old girl when he was in his 50's? He likes to hang out at a McDonald's Playland and chat up the moms, the grandmas and the kids. The kids who frequent the playland area range in age from birth to probably 10, so they are not technically in his "range" . Should there be a law about this? Does an existing one apply? I don't have absolute proof that this guy is the same one on the SO list. Police have been alerted, but nothing's changed. I just no longer go there when he's there. Other frequent patrons tell me that he still comes at his regular time and still chats up the kids, etc,

While I absolutely agree that child/child sexual relations (18yo-16yo sex, 15yo downloading pics) should not be treated the same as other sex offenses, the apologism for child rapists here is disgusting.

An 18yo having sex with a 13yo child? A 27yo having sex with 16yos? A 35yo teacher sleeping with his 15yo student?

These are exactly the sort of offenses that the sex registry should notify the public about.

And Zorn, not including these instances in your definition of "real sex crimes (rape, pedophilia, etc.)" contributes the idea that just because a child doesn't resist, the sex is ok. A child cannot consent. Period.

ZORN REPLY -- You'll note that I didn't contend that Kevin Teichen's conviction was unjust, only that the conditions for his parole/release are absurd, overly punitive and not likely to help him lead a peaceful, productive life. 16 year olds can legally get married in most states, including Illinois -- http://www.usmarriagelaws.com/search/united_states/teen_marriage_laws/index.shtml so let's do try to keep the level of the offense and the danger he poses to others in perspective.

This tragic story is so much more common than people realize. People envision "sex offenders" as dirty old men hanging around palygrounds. In fact, many are teens who had consensual sex with other teens (usually a misdemeanor), were required to register, and then screwed up their registration (which is a felony). Now thousands of them are stuck in prison because the Department does not have the resources to check to see if their proposed housing complies with the myriad of restrictions placed on where sex offenders can live, and no one EVER gives them a hearing where they can prove that they have an acceptable place to live. No wonder the prisons are overflowing and the state is broke.

I think punishment by geography should be considered unconstitutional, we’ll agree many sexual offenders don’t hunt small children. It’s enough to restrict certain occupations for former SOs. But, should I feel sorry for someone who knowingly breaks the law, then bemoans the current punishment? Should molested minors in their teens be considered less important to the definition of the crime, perhaps once the victim reaches puberty these crimes should be considered misdemeanors, without follow up restrictions or labeling?

“Of the 1,292 sex offenders discharged in fiscal 2008 after serving parole behind bars, 28 percent were listed as missing, not having registered their address or not being up-to-date with their registrations, compared with 23 percent of the 1,868 sex offenders paroled into the community.”

28% = 362, while 23% = 430, I don’t find breaking it down by percent to be reassuring. And do you really believe the resumption of this type of criminal behavior, or not, depends upon where the perpetrator serves his parole?

Another great example of how poor our elected official are in governing. They make laws to fit their political objectives and to retain power, regardless of who is hurt or helped. It does not matter to our politicians how much collateral damage is caused by their decisions. Their objective is getting re-elected and retaining power, nothing more and nothing less.

The Madigans, Birketts, Burkes, Daleys of our state have ruined and continue to ruin many lives.

Not unlike the suspension of an 8-yr old for bringing a toy gun (or a real kitchen knife to cut his lunch food) from school because the school rules have no tolerance (and apparently no sense). We don't seem to think things through. What does happen if we restrict someone from living ANYWHERE? What do we do to a child that makes an innocent mistake, and instead of helping, we kick the child out of school? What happens when we take someone who is an addict, and instead of treatment, stick them in an overcrowded jail cell, so when they get out they can never get a job? How about deporting the illegal immigrant mom with the legal dad & kids staying here? What really happens with one of these "mobs" if the victim has a gun in his pocket? We take the most simplistic answer & pass a law, and then we're stuck with it. We might as well plan on buiding more prisons & just sentencing everyone to life for any infraction if we don't consider the ramifications of what we're doing.

---Fetal alcohol syndrome prevents Kevin from making wise judgments. A mother who inflicts this future on a child could do no worse and those who take up the challenge for caring for these kids deserve our praise.

There seems to be no forgiveness or accommodation even for those who will not hurt others.

ZORN NOTE -- I didn't mention that Kevin is adopted...I feel as though this information is often included needlessly, but in retrospect I suppose it relevantly absolves the Teichens of responsibility for his condition.

You should be ashamed of yourself for defending monsters, this guy knew what he was doing and suffered the consequences, and he will continue to suffer as long as he lives. Those poor girls he hurt, think of the victims and not this poor schmuck who raped more than once. The law said he was mature enough and thats enough for me...He deserves what he gets...Lock em up and throw away the key...Instead of letting these monsters out, they should civilly commit these people to save society from one more child rapest of the streets

The problem with sex offenders are their arent enough laws protecting us, and we need to take a stand against these monsters and force them back in jail...Change the laws so they cant live in our neighborhoods and protect our children.

@Concerned Citizen - Your arguments -- to the degree that they merit that designation -- have been thoroughly rebutted in the comments above. You may be able to avoid making such a fool of yourself again in the future by reading the previous comments before posting.

The way all "sex offenders" are treated the same is ridiculous. We should differentiate cases like these from those of the true pedophiles and molesters. Even the ones where men stupidly go to meet that 16-year-old who's befriended them online, only to discover--surprise--it's a cop are not in the same class as the real sex criminals. They are just desperate and dumb--even though I've known a few smart people to get ensnared and have their lives really messed up.

"Even the ones where men stupidly go to meet that 16-year-old who's befriended them online..."

Excuse me, I think that should read adult men who troll for underage teens online, looking to hook up for sex. Sounds like a real sex criminal to me. They're neither desperate or dumb, and they know they're breaking the law.

@MrJM
It appears that liberals have decided to take pitty on this sick people..
The pseudo article is a liberal attempt to humanize these monsters..
Would you want one of these people living next to you? or in your neighborhood?
When one of these scum moves in to my area, i will see to it that they move...
for the safety of society as whole we need to stand up to those who terrorize our children...If you rape, you will rape anyone at any age...Rape is rape and should be punishable by life in prison, but we arent that advanced yet, but the law will catch up..
Claiming you have some sort of decease is not an excuse to commit rape...

Concerned Citizen, you should strive to become a well-informed citizen prior to posting your comments. There is much data-driven research out there, much of posted by University professors who are experts in the area, by state committees charged with the task, and by the US Justice Department, that convincingly refutes the effectiveness of the Sex Offender Registry and its draconian restrictions. Residency and employment restrictions do not protect anyone and can be counterproductive in driving the worst offenders underground, where law enforcement cannot keep track of them. Additionally, the stats show that recidivism for sex offenders is very low -- lower than any other class of criminals except murderers -- and yet you can live next door to people who committed aggravated assault or armed robbery and never know it. I, for one, would rather live next door to the 19-yr-old who had consensual sex with his 14-year-old girlfriend.

The overly broad Registry lumps 22-year-old college kids who talk online about consensual sex with females who are a few weeks away from being 16 in with rapists and 40-year-olds who entice 10-year-olds. The violent are not separated from the non-violent. Law enforcement cannot devote the attention deserved to protect the public from true predaters, because they have to monitor everyone the same. What a waste of resources! And did you know that over 90% of all children who are sexually molested are molested by family or close friends? Why don't we put some resources into education/prevention of these crimes?

Nancy Grace and others of her ilk have used the 1% of true heinous sex offenses to pull in ratings bonanzas. Politicians then capitalize on the myth and hysteria to get elected. And the taxpayers are forever emptying their pockets for laws are are ineffective and egregiously expensive.

"I dont care if it was consentual. This guy shows severe lack of judgement in these situations and other people benefit from being forewarned"

I wish people would read up on what Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is before making comments. If they did, they would have realized that this disease prevents those diagnosed with the disease from making sound judgements.

--Seems to me if Kevin Teichen was found guilty but mentally incapable of knowing the consequences of his actions, there should be some accommodation in the law for administering drugs to him that would blunt his sex drive. In this way, he would be rendered less dangerous to people around him.

I was president of a large condo, and was confronted by a resident about the sex offender "we were allowing" to live in the building. It's wasn't our choice, but I pointed out that it was an example of the registry law working. Offenders have to live somewhere, and if they are compliant with the registry laws, you know who they are, and you can choose whether to ride the elevator with them or not. You aren't going to get many politicians to stick their necks out to make laws that make sense if it makes them appear less than "tough on crime."

Seriously? You really think that the young man is dangerous? I have an autistic nephew who wants nothing more than for people to like him. If he thought that it would get him friends he would probably have sex with underage girls and never consider the consequences because he can't think that far ahead. Does that make him a menace to society or someone who can be taken advantage of?

This is one of those third rail issues in politics, isn't it? I suspect that the majority of people would say that we shouldn't criminalize boyfriend/girlfriend consensual sex, even if the girl is underage. But no legislator would dare advance the thought; a vocal minority would cry, "Yew arr jeropadizing tha childrunn!" and the legislator would be saddled with it at the next election.

We should be careful what laws we make, because, particularly in areas such as this, it's difficult to un-make them.

The public has a right to be protected. The parents did not do such a good job of supervising a 27 year old man with the mental capacity of a 10 year old in 2008 - are they going to do a better job now? This individual probably needs institutional care. How can someone with this severely limited mental capacity "transition" back into society????

Why doesn't Kevin Teichen get the same treatment that our illustrious ex-politician / convicted sex offender Mel Reynolds got? After being doing prison time for having sex with a 16 year old, Mel got to live across the street from the school where - not only his children attended- but he worked at the church connected with the school!
And now he works for PUSH ( through his old friend Jesse Jackson) as -can you believe this?- a youth counselor.
But then, Kevin is just a little guy, handicapped by Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and please help society if he can't return to the one place where people who love him can monitor him better than any parole officer...his parent's home.

I think several here misunderstand Teichen's disability. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome can range from specific learning disabilities to mental retardation. Many with a mental age of 10 can lead successful, almost independent lives and have the ability to discern right from wrong. They often have impulse control problems and don't always think about the consequences of their actions. Yet, they are certainly not individuals that need constant monitoring or drugs to control their behavior, unless they suffer other, more severe mental impairment, which I doubt is true in this case.

The problem is our prison systems are filled with individuals who are learning or cognitively disabled with behavior problems. These individuals usually end up there because they can't transition from the protected special education world they grew up in, which excuses inappropriate behavior without laying out consequences for their actions, into the real world where laws are expected to be followed. Our courts and prison systems are hardly equipped to deal with their disabilities. I fault our educational systems for poorly preparing them in adult social skills. They usually end up without even family support and become lifetime convicts, returning to jail again and again. Many of my former students have followed this route.

Concerned Citizen: "Claiming you have some sort of decease is not an excuse to commit rape..."

As has been stated repeatedly, no one is proposing the decriminalization of statutory rape. Your straw man arguments are utterly unpersuasive. And the fact that your straw man arguments are littered with misspelling, grammar and punctuation errors doesn't help them.

You are quite right to point out Teichen's disability and the inability of our court, prison, and educational systems to deal with the mentally disabled. While I'm not sure that our educational system (as in public schools) should do much more than teach basic subjects, I strongly believe that we need to provide alternative arrangements for mentally and physically disabled children. Perhaps this would tend to isolate them from those with normal capacities but in doing so it would offer them a chance to realize their maximum potential while ensuring everyone's safety. This is how welfare funds should be spent, in my opinion.

Regardless of how the public, and many who have posted here, feel about sex offenders and where they should (or should not) be allowed to live, the research on residency restrictions does not support them as method of reducing recidivism. What the research does show is that a former offender who has a stable home, has access to transportation, employment opportunities, treatment options, and support systems is less likely to re-offend than someone who has none of these.

What the media has done is create a society so fearful of sex offenders that our lawmakers are too afraid to look "soft" on them, therefore they continue to pass laws that appease the public without any regard to their actual effectiveness, thus making us LESS safe.

Until our lawmakers begin to pass laws that are supported by research and not by public opinion, they will continue to pile on restrictions -- under the guise of "protecting our children" -- not only former sex offenders but their families without the benefit of actually protecting anyone but themselves.

If you visit Colonial era graves in the Northeast you will see children who were marreid that died in child birth at 11years and four months. I think the gravesites are in Peter's Valley along the Delaware.
In Germany the legal age of consent is 14 years old, hence making the entire populaton of Germany potential sex offenders

Mexican states have a "primary" age of consent (which may be as low as 12),
The age of consent in New Jersey is 16. However, minors aged 13, 14 and 15 may legally engage in sexual activities with persons up to 4 years older than them

This protects highschool students from prosecution unlike like Georgia which loves sending their highscholl age sons to jail (that'll teach 'em)

I am guessing 50% of California Highschool kids are sex ofenders
CaliforniaThe age of consent is 18, with a misdemeanor if the minor has 3 or fewer years of difference with the major, and potentially a felony if the major is more than 3 years older.

How does the U.S. constitution protect freedom when the State can pass any ex-post facto law they like, without a hearing and without appeal, apply it to whomever they like and all they have to do is come up with a theory of protection that sounds good (regardless if it has been shown to not protect)?

You do know what this means, right? I am going to give you the outcomes to what you are doing that can be applied to ANYONE.

First you need a serious problem and one that severely impacts on the community. 6,420,000 auto accidents in 2005 and 42,636 people killed (not counting the injured). To put this into perspective, 58,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War.

Who is doing all this killing? They are the people who speed on highways and drunk drivers, that is who.

2 laws are going to be passed. One is anyone EVER caught speeding will be charged with aggravated child abuse for EVER having a child in a car AND have their children taken from them.

The second law will be: All DUI offenders must live within 500 feet of a place that sells alcohol. This is to ensure that no drunk has to drive to get their fix.

These laws will be applied ex-post facto as these laws are to "protect the community, and especially children."

Think these kind of laws are ridiculous and I will parade 1000's of victims who will tell the most horrendous, heart wrenching stories and the end will always be you ugly speeders and drunks.

Remember, these people are CONVICTED drunk drivers and speeders; not innocent. A person dies every 7 minutes on the highways. They all lost their rights by putting people at risk of harm and death in the most horrible of ways.

42,000 people dead on highways and 3 times that injured.

You can set up a police State can't you? And you have the sex offender registry as precedence. You are not a free country at all, are you?

You know, it isn't the politicians who are to blame for these laws; it is the COURT system that will NOT stand up to the politicians as the politicians pander to fear.

There can be no rational basis for a 500 foot rule. As someone above mentioned, how is the community better protected when one lives 510 feet or at risk by living 490 feet? Is there any evidence a distance restriction protects? (the answer is, no).

Laws must be rational in order to be constitutional. Or else they violate the cruel and unusual punishment clause. Putting this person mentioned in the article onto the streets when he has a support system and a home inherently does not protect the community and is cruel AND unusual, at least by modern standards or world standards.

They called these laws, civil. Civil laws must have a rational outcome. Not a rational argument.

Do not blame politicians, for they are acting just like politicians and enacting laws that the public wants and gets them elected (or saves them from losing their job). A weak judicial branch is extremely dangerous to the concept of liberty. A judicial branch who is beholden to the electorate by elections, inherently cannot be independent.

THAT is the problem. Not pandering politicians or hysterical citizens. You will always have them. But you are supposed to have an independent judiciary checking the legislative branch for idiotic laws. When you don't have that, you will have the outcomes I describe above. And that is the ideals of a utopia with the reality of totalitarianism.

Respectfully, you don't understand how the law works. There are so many problems with your analysis that I hardly know where to begin. Your understanding of the Constitution and the role of the courts is lacking, and that's being kind.

@ Greg That is not a reply. You don't know how to begin, is hardly a rebuttal. Maybe your thinking is too clouded and you can't reply except to say my understanding is lacking?

I do know how the law works. This article is talking about the enforcement of a civil law, that has been shown to be constitutional, solely because of a rational argument. The law ignored irrational outcomes.

Sigh. Ok, but please understand that I wasn't patronizing you and I meant no offense.

Regarding your first comment, sex offender registration is not tantamount to an unconstitutional ex post facto law. See Smith v. Doe, which found that such registration is a civil, nonpunitive restriction. Even Souter agreed! Courts are required to look at legislative intent and not solely outcomes when deciding whether you have a civil measure designed to protect the public or a punitive matter designed to punish a criminal. Your reasoning to support your drunk driving analogy is fueled by emotion and rhetoric rather than actual legal principles. The civil vs. punitive issue has nothing to do with whether a problem is "serious" or "severely impacts the community." If you want to complain about having a police state that's fine but you need to make a rational argument.

Regarding your second comment, where in the law does it say that a law has to be rational in order for it to be constitutional? That's plainly not true. When a court has the freedom to decide whether or not any law is rational, that court is legislating and usurping legislative authority. There is such a thing as a "rational basis test" but that's a very limited and specific constitutional law term of art and I don't see how it applies here. Further, you don't understand the concept of "cruel and unusual punishment." Again, this has an extremely limited scope. The main problem with your second argument is that you far overstate the ability of the judicial branch to override the legislative branch. You need to keep in mind that neither branch is superior and courts do not have the last call on whether legislation is valid unless there is a constitutional question. Otherwise, courts can only interpret legislation.

I am a Baptist Pastor who would be labeled a "fundamentalist" and definitely a social conservative. Eric is right on with this issue. There needs to be a limit to the ultimate punishment applied to these cases which by law lump together radically different criminals. It isn't just residency, but also employment as background checks reveal a person as a sexual offender. A man in my church is so identified 10 years after consensual sex (yes sinful and illegal) with a girl legally 2 months younger than allowed when he was in his early 20's. When a person like this has done jail time, probabtion, counseling, and lives carefully observing the legal requirments and more, it is time to either remove him from the list or identify clearly what the crime was so people today can make an intelligent decision about him as an individual.

Think about what you are saying, Greg. A legislative body, who has inherent proclivities to pass irrational laws, because of the inherent politicalization of a legislature can't be overturned by a court of law as irrational. Therefore, this man, as a civil measure designed to protect the public will be homeless when he has a perfectly suitable home to go to, but for a law.

You cited, Smith v. Doe, which exactly states that a court doesn't have to look at outcomes and only has to have a rational argument for the law to be constitutional. And if you read, Smith v. Doe, you would also read that they do this because of this over-riding public interest in protecting children from sex offenses. The court just looked at the fact of registration, and in the Connecticut case, they looked at fact of public notification. They totally ignored outcomes and assumed the good intentions of a legislature would have the good outcome of actual public safety.

The registry is punitive (as it far outweighs any regulatory effect). Therefore, notwithstanding any judicial decision, it is a human right to flee the registry and protect oneself from the despotism of a public and laws whose only outcome is the loss of safety and/or security.

The U.S. had on the books the most irrational laws of "separate but equal" for many years. In the U.S. a legislature only has to assert some governmental interest in order for individuals to be stripped of all their rights even to exist in the community (residency restrictions, loitering restrictions, free speech restrictions, harassment, banishment, isolation and hate), all done by a legislature, all done after the fact and none of it has to actually show it does anything, except have the intent of protection.

This governmental interest has been used to inter the Japanese during WWII. This governmental interest has been used to force stererilization on those the State deems immoral (a rape victim). This governmental interest is now forcing a mentally handicapped person onto the streets.

The court has the obligation to be a gatekeeper to such a registry as this. If it decides it does not, or cannot, then my analogy of drunk drivers and speeders is a possible outcome. You just don't see it because you haven't yet been implanted with the fear of 42000 people dead on the highways. But you will as you are building a utopia. And any law that purports to bring you closer to it, even if it throws people onto the street, is a-ok by any court.

Your registry has no credibility in any way, shape, or form, you do know that, right? What I am saying, is, nobody has to follow any registry law. Fundamentally, you cannot force anyone to follow laws whose only outcome is the loss of safety and/or security. If the U.S. doesn't get that and can legitimize actions through their arcane language of case law, give up the pretense of freedom and justice. Because you have neither.

--I should define what an irrational law is: A law that has the outcome that the vast majority of reasonable people would conclude makes no sense for public safety, and/or individual rights or results in the loss of safety and/or security.

Your suggestion that cases of grown adults having sex with 15 and 16 year old children are not "real sex crimes" was bad enough, but to try to justify that stance by pointing out the legal marriage age in Illinois?

What does the legal marriage age have to do with these cases of child rape?

Though, since you bring it up: you'll notice that parental consent is required in order for people under the age of 18 to marry in Illinois.

Why? Because children cannot legally consent. So their parent(s) must do it for them.

But please, go on defending child rape by classifying it as not a "real" sex crime.

ZORN REPLY -- At no point here have I used the expression "real sex crime." Why are you putting quotes around these words or implying that it's a fair paraphrase of anything I wrote?
So-called "statutory rape" of girls in their mid-teens is different in degree from violent and forcible rape and sexual content with very young children... I'll stand by that.
We allow a parent to consent to "statutory rape" of their daughters, but we would never allow a parent to "consent" to allowing their daughter to be violently raped or allowing their pre-pubescent daughter to have any sexual contact whatsoever. Get it?

I don't think Eric Zorn is saying that what Kevin Teichen did is not a crime. What he is pointing out in the article is that no matter what he did, the restrictions placed on him, and every other RSO, are ineffective and lack common sense.

Murder is a "real" crime, yet murderers are free to live where they want, etc. once they have served their sentences. Same with drug dealers, muggers, con artists, and drunk drivers. Only sex offenders have restrictions imposed on them for their entire lives, long after they have paid their debt to society.

If there was any research that showed residency restrictions were effective in reducing future crimes and protecting the public, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. However, current research (and there is a lot of it available from the past few years) shows that is not the case and can even reduce public safety.

The article is not about what Kevin Teichen did. It is about what he will face once he is finished serving his sentence and the absurdity of our current laws.

---"Murder is a "real" crime, yet murderers are free to live where they want, etc. once they have served their sentences. Same with drug dealers, muggers, con artists, and drunk drivers. Only sex offenders have restrictions imposed on them for their entire lives, long after they have paid their debt to society."

Good point, who would you rather live next to - a sex offender or a murderer? Remember a murderer can live 100ft from a school but yet a sex offender has to be more than 500 feet from a school

However, now you are clearly making a distinction between "forcible rape" (a disgusting and repetitive phrase) and statutory rape - an equally disgusting and illegal sexual assault on children.

As I said, I agree there should be a difference in the way we react to a 19yo sleeping with his 16yo girlfriend or a 15yo sending another child inappropriate pictures.

But a 35yo man sleeping with his 15yo student? A 27yo man sleeping with two 16yo girls? This is 100% rape and people who do this are absolutely a threat to others in their community.

ZORN REPLY -- I'm not saying 35 on 15 or, as in this case, 27 on 16, in a non-forcible situation isn't a crime, but I'm saying that no, it's not the SAME crime as a 27 year old grabbing and having sex with a struggling, frightened unwilling 16 year old.
When you seem to claim otherwise you seem shrill and unreasonable. Just sayin'.

Now I understand better what you are doing. You are arguing what the law "should" be rather than how the law actually operates. There is nothing wrong with that and I engage in many "should" arguments on this blog as well. However, I don't allow it to cloud my legal thinking.

For instance, I think that we should be able to carry concealed weapons for self protection, that we should have laws restricting abortions, and that we should have laws requiring people to show identification before voting. In my opinion, it's irrational that we don't already have such laws. So what's my solution? Well, I want to work within the law to make changes. After all, we are a nation of laws and not men.

Your view of what is rational will differ from others' points of view. Your view of Smith v. Doe is interesting but not based on prevailing legal standards (e.g., the court is not required to look at outcomes).

You can cite past legal changes (e.g., separate but equal), human rights, etc. but it's really just your opinion. Again, there's nothing wrong with that because I have my opinions on what should or should not be law as well. The problem is that if you start ignoring the law, you will have to face the consequences. The government can't force anyone to obey a registry law, or pay taxes, or register for the draft, or refrain from owning a weapon; that's true. What the government can do is throw you in jail for not complying with the law because this is a nation of laws.

Oh, Greg. Did you not read my definition of rational? In your opinion can you get the vast majority of people to say your opinions about abortion and gun control are not rational? Can you get the vast majority of people to say, putting this person on the street is irrational? Can you see the difference?

You are not a nation of laws, Greg. It sounds good, when your rights are attached, but if you are black or a registered sex offender, the State is nothing but a despot looking for any reason to throw someone into prison.

As I said, and I stand by it, AND is international law as stated under the 1948 U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, NOBODY has to follow laws whose only outcome is a loss of safety and/or security.

You don't get to force people into the choice of homelessness or jail, I don't care what law you have Who do you think you are? A nation of laws? HA!

You are a nation who will, at their whim, violate every single precept of decency that the world has spend decades putting together into a recognizable system of laws so those things like Nazi-ism can't spread their ugly head again (see Gitmo)

The registry has no credibility, Greg. Take that to the bank. It is being laughed at. It is being ignored. And there is nothing you, your police State or anyone can do about it.

First off: first paragraph above should read,... your opinions about abortion and gun control are rational to the exclusion of the opinions of the minute minority?

I will end with two quotes from the founding fathers:

Nothing is more common than for a free people, in times of heat and violence, to gratify momentary passions by letting into the government principles and precedents which afterwards prove fatal to themselves.
Of this kind is the doctrine of disqualification, disfranchisement, and banishment, by acts of legislature. The dangerous consequences of this power are manifest.
If the legislature can disfranchise any number of citizens at pleasure by general descriptions, it may soon confine all the votes to a small number of partisans, and establish an aristocracy or an oligarchy. If it may banish at discretion all those whom particular circumstances render obnoxious without hearing or
trial, no man can be safe nor know when he may be the innocent victim of a prevailing faction. The name of liberty applied to such a government would be a mockery of common sense. Alexander Hamilton.

"Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. ... The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less-informed part of the community." James Madison, Federalist Number 44, 1788.

You people think you have something because a bunch of judges could play legal gymnastics and let you do it. But you are standing on a big pile of NOTHING.

The sex offender registry does NOT reduce recidivism. It does NOT make our kids safer. It is a "feel-good" program used to trick the tax payer into funneling more money to the state. If the numbers show that children are not safer because of the registry, why would anyone continue shed their hard earned money to continue it?

I'm so tired of giving the government more money and getting nothing in return!! Are people so used to being spoon fed by the 500 channels on TV that they no longer judge a bill on it's actual RESULTS? If a politician says lets pass a bill for education, and then just throws the money he collected from you down a well, would you blindly just give that money because education in general is good? Perhaps even worse, would you do it again and AGAIN???

If anyone wants to pay for something that doesn't work, I've got a TV in my basement for you, lol.

(Look at the study for yourself and see how your politicians have swindled you in to paying for another program that doesn't work by playing on your fears: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/231989.pdf ) ....this is the government's OWN funded study. The same government that says we need to do more of what doesn't work!!

If we put aside the debate of monster vs. misguided and just look at it from the standpoint of success vs. failure, then we all should abolish the registry because it doesn't work.

I respect your point of view on the basis that the courts have up held it's constitutionality (the registry that is), however we must observe that the courts also have said that CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE and deserve the same rights as our flesh and blood brothers and sisters. The courts envision the Constitution differently from era to era and from different political bias. We need to look at what the founding fathers intended and understand that there are certain rights that can not be taken away from even the most reviled humans, not on the debated idea that they 'deserve' the same rights as others, but because in protecting the rights of society's most undesirable we are in turn protecting our own.

Each step we take to infringe the rights of anyone, the same rights we demand for ourselves, it lowers the bar to a new level of what can and can not be taken away from people. Even if the reasons are completely justifiable, those small well intentioned steps bring us closer to "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." As history has shown time and again, such actions which take away rights in societies best interest inevitably sneak up on the good law abiding citizen. Their noble intentions will not be a good enough protection to keep what they have taken away from others.

About "Change of Subject."

"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
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Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.